H&M will open 9 new ecommerce sites in Europe

H&M will sell online in Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Switzerland. The Swedish fashion retailer is making a big ecommerce push as it already invested heavily in its online retail site and took several steps to connect its web and mobile assets with its brick-and-mortar stores.

H&M announced the ecommerce expansion in Europe during its full-year and Q4 earnings this Wednesday. The Swedish retailer also said it will launch H&M Beauty (make-up, body care and hair care products) in around 900 H&M stores and online in autumn this year, the full year report writes.

Investments in ecommerce are bearing fruit
“While we are continuing our long-term investments, at the same time we can see our investments in areas such as online starting to bear fruit”, said H&M’s CEO Karl-Johan Persson. “This year we opened our online store in four new large markets: France, Italy, Spain and China. These openings, combined with further improvements in our online store, have naturally contributed to the year’s good sales development. We will therefore be rolling out H&M’s online store to nine new markets this year: Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Switzerland.”

Speaking of investments, H&M began rolling out scan-and-buy in some of its stores, which enables shoppers to use a smartphone to scan an item in-store and order it online. Internet Retailer writes H&M also improved the navigation and search on its online stores, as well as extended product range and add more and higher-quality pictures.

H&M increased its sales by 14 percent to 18.9 billion euros, while profit increased by 18 percent to over 2.14 billion euros. The retailer opened 379 stores in 2014, so it now has 3,511 stores in 55 countries.